January 6, 2010 - by Karen Longwell
More than 100 bicycles will help students get to school in Cambodia thanks to the efforts of the Rotary Club of Bracebridge-Muskoka Lakes.
Lisa McCoy, a Rotarian and retired librarian from Gravenhurst, left for Southeast Asia in early October 2009. McCoy is volunteering to teach English in Cambodia and working on several projects including the bike project, aimed at helping students with transportation.
Students received 76 bikes at a huge distribution ceremony at Cambodia World Family - Krong Kep School on Dec. 18, said McCoy. Friends and family came from miles around to attend the presentation, she said.
Fifty bicycles were sponsored by the Rotary Club of Bracebridge-Muskoka Lakes and 22 by the Rotary Club of Orillia.
Four more bicycles were sponsored by Pauline Johns, an Australian resident who helped with the distribution in Kep, said McCoy.
The Rotary Club of Bracebridge-Muskoka Lakes will be donating another 53 bikes to villages around Takeo in mid-January, she said. Kep and Takeo are provinces in southwestern Cambodia.
The bicycle recipients are students of the Cambodia World Family - Krong Kep School. They live miles away from this “Free English” school, and from the nearest government school, said McCoy.
In Cambodia, children usually attend the government school for part of their day and then, if available, they attend extracurricular classes in English or other beneficial subjects, she said.
It costs some children a few cents a day to attend government school and many families can’t afford the cost. Many students rely on Free English schools that are supported by non-profit organizations, said McCoy.
In Kep province, the Cambodia World Family - Krong Kep School is the only Free English school around for many miles, she said.
“This area sadly lacks the wealth of organizations which are seen operating throughout the province of Siem Reap,” said McCoy. “I couldn’t have been happier to see this wealth of bicycles go to such needy rural children.”
The children will be able to attend the Khmer, English, sanitation and computer classes that are available for free at this small, rural three-room school, she said.
The students can also come to the school’s small library and borrow one of its few books, take it home, and share literacy with their rural family, she said.
The school also provides community outreach programs with a strong focus on bringing education and self-sustaining skills to rural women and girls, said McCoy. At present, there is a desperate need to have a few of the school’s sewing machines fixed so it can reinstate its sewing classes for women, she said. The library urgently needs both Khmer and English books, which can be bought here in Cambodia for a fraction of the cost in other countries, she said.
In December, McCoy said she was volunteering to teach at the English Cambodia World Family - Krong Kep School.
It is a remote area, one of the last to be free of the Khmer Rouge, the deadly political regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.
“Up until 1998, the Khmer Rouge still had control of this area, and would come down from the mountains and forcibly disrupt all teaching,” she said.
There are many people illiterate in Khmer language in this area and the school conducts outreach literacy classes in six outlying villages, she said.
McCoy said there is a need for more bikes and she is hoping to get sponsors for a sewing course for the village women. A donation of $100 will sponsor a woman in a seven-month sewing course at the Kep school, she said.
More information about Lisa McCoy and her work in Cambodia can be found on her blog at http://schoolsforcambodia.blogspot.com/.
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